


Eira Shepard on Shoreleave

by ConnorJHadeset



Series: Eira Shepard's Reasoning [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 03:18:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13355373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConnorJHadeset/pseuds/ConnorJHadeset
Summary: After the Battle for Thessia, Shepard takes shore leave at the Citadel, allowing herself to enjoy Anderson's apartment and a stiff drink.





	Eira Shepard on Shoreleave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Negasonic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Negasonic/gifts).



> Throughout the series, Commander Shepard makes choices that affect the whole galaxy as well as those closest to her. The series fails to allow the reasoning to be properly explored outside of the player's imagination. This is how I fill in my Shepard's gaps.

The door opened to admit the Shepard into the apartment; she slipped off her shoes and left them by the door, under the comm wall panel. The crew was on seventy-two hour shore leave on the Citadel. Time away from the Normandy might clear her head. On this side of the Citadel there was enough to distract her; a couple bars, the casino, the arcade, and the combat simulator. As of now she elected a bar.

Before Anderson signed the lease for this apartment over to Shepard, he kept it well stocked. A place this large would have had cleaning personnel on hand. On close inspection, none of the food was expired; she could not recall the placement of everything in the fridge so the conclusion that it was all new only made sense. 

The beer bottle was uncorked with a satisfying clink that released a feeling signaling the beginning of a relaxing stage of the evening. She stepped through the door connecting to the office. Inside was the minibar and extensive bookcase, when did Anderson have time to read all this? The terminal at the far end was blinking. Once the apartment was signed over to her, Traynor linked the computer profile from the commander’s personal terminal on the Normandy. Shepard skimmed through the read emails. The one titled “Asari Military Command” glared at her. She glared back for a moment and moved to the unread messages. 

The bulk of the messages were various members of the crew asking to hang out when she was free. Shepard took a swig of her beer and went up the stairs to one of the spare bedrooms. It still felt weird sleeping in the master bedroom. Anderson said he didn't’ see himself coming back to this place, but with all that’s going on, it seemed like she would be condemning him, and by extension, the whole galaxy as well. 

The superstition was ridiculous but it stuck. She placed the bottle on the nightstand and unzipped her hoodie. The bottom right corner of the vid screen on the wall was blinking. She picked up the remote and clicked through the settings to find out what the blinking was. It was a file of video recordings sent directly to the vid screen. She played the first one. 

“Siha,” the raspy voice said through the vid screen, back from the dead. 

The vid screen turned black; Shepard’s finger shuddered on the power button. How did she forget? It must have been weeks ago, maybe a few months, that Koylat sent these videos. He said he did at Thane’s wake. Shepard’s eyes watered and she blinked them back. No, not yet. She was going to the bar. She can sob later. Much, much later. 

In the bathroom of the spare room was a hot tub. Having grown up on starships all her life, the massive size of this apartment as well as its ridiculous levels of spoiled comforts took time to get used to, but not much time. Shepard turned on the heat and went back for her beer, stripping along the way. The bottle was half empty. Still naked, she descended the steps back to the kitchen. She grabbed two more bottles and the bottle opener. 

The hot tub was bubbling and the steam offered a relaxing fragrance of an Asari flower, the name of which she couldn’t remember. It wasn’t one of Liara’s favorites, so it wasn’t committed to memory. Regardless, it was soothing to senses. She placed the line of bottles on the tile floor and lowered herself into the water. 

“Siha,” the name he’d given her still echoed in her mind as though it were lined with the same smooth tiles as this bathroom. She drank. She hadn’t properly mourned Thane yet. There was too much to do. 

Keeping herself busy was a sure fire way to get past troubles. Stressed? Get up and go do something productive. Sad? Go for a run. Mourning a loved one? Do something, anything. For her adult life there was always another mission. It was a fact of life since childhood; one parent was often away and she understood faster than most the importance of completion.  
In this instance, one mission led to another, and another, and another, and then this most recent one. If civilization survives, Thessia’s fall will be a day she’ll never live down. Would Liara ever forgive her? Or herself for that matter? 

That is my home down there she said. The Asari councilor sent them to Thessia to respond to the Reaper threat but, more importantly, to acquire a Prothean artifact Asair High Command thought may prove useful in the war effort against the Reapers. 

It killed her to leave Thessia without the artifact. Despite the crew departing for shore leave, Liara was holed up in her office and hardly left, except for food. She was following Shepard’s advice and keeping herself useful. With her homeworld under siege and her species’s culture facing eventual annihilation, along with the rest of the galaxy, siphoning survivors off world and finding safe havens for them was the best she could hope to do. Javik was insensitive about the whole ordeal and Shepard kept the young Asari from attacking him for his insufferable callousness. 

Javik is the last of his kind, Shepard thought to herself. She was halfway through the second beer now, And humanity has been getting the same treatment for the last six months. Even in her mind she bit back the urge to say “Get over it.” But there’s no getting over watching your homeworld’s slow crumble into nothingness. If it were quick, then there’d be an option to move on. But the Reapers are systematic and thorough and had no qualms about taking centuries to eliminate an entire civilization. 

The third bottle came to Shepard’s lips. Fifty thousand years in dark space, waiting to come destroy them now. The more she thought of it, the more crushing it felt in her chest. She upended the bottle, finished it, and climbed out to dry off and get dressed. 

The buzz was pleasant enough while it lasted. By the time she stepped out of the building Shepard felt it fading. Hoping to avoid the horrors of sobriety, she went directly to the nearest bar. It sat on the second floor of a casino. She climbed the stairs and found an empty stool. 

The bartender recognized her and asked what the Hero of the Citadel would like to drink. Shepard placed her order and was told her drinks would be on the house. 

“My children are safe because of you,” he said, “Cerberus nearly leveled my apartment block down in the Wards. But in comes you, the Hero came back to save us a second time!” 

The bartender didn’t shout, but the elation in his voice all but made it sound as much. Shepard asked the children’s names. They were Isaia, Will, and Ori. “You’d think with Cerberus being so pro-human they would’ve left some of us alone.” 

Shepard shook her head, “They’ve never been as clear cut as that.” The burns from the detoxing process were fresh in her mind, many years later. A single drop of Thresher Maw venom in a person’s veins was lethal. Cerberus led her unit into the Thresher’s nest. Cerberus killed her unit. She struggled to decide if she respected their gall for asking her for help the previous year. Dying can change your perspective. 

With a raised glass, Shepard toasted to the bartender’s children, “May the saddest day of their future be no worse than the happiest day of their past.” The bartender poured himself a quick shot to complete the toast with a word of thanks. 

Behind the bar was a small dance floor; it sat on a balcony overlooking the casino floor. There was one couple that caught her attention. She caught a familiar glimpse of blue skin in the bar’s reflection. She turned and was almost disappointed to see it was not Liara on the dance floor. It was another Asari with the same skin tone, but the face was all different. This Asari was dancing with a human woman. 

By the women’s dress, it must have been a special occasion. Their hands were joined and they brought their cheeks and hips together, matching each other’s sways. They were laughing. Shepard was never good at dancing but it never stopped Liara from pulling her onto the floor during previous shore leaves onto the Citadel. The lighting in those memories were much the same as they are now; the same level of intimacy as well. 

How many times has the couple in front of Shepard have the same conversations she had with Liara? Asari live for a thousand years. Humans are lucky if they make it half past one century. Asari age much more gracefully than humans do. Shepard met many matriarchs, Asari in their final centuries of life, and none were decrepit or wheelchair ridden. Samara had to have been in her nine hundredth year and she had all flexibility and skill a millennia of fighting can offer with none of the drawbacks of age. 

“You’d be taking care of me,” Shepard had told Liara years ago. “Pushing me in a wheelchair and wiping my ass and watching me fade.” 

“I understand that,” Liara had said simply. 

They were in Shepard’s cabin at the time. The Geth had been pushed back and Saren was dead. Shepard was heralded as the Hero of the Citadel. 

The Normandy was bouncing around nearby systems and eliminating the remaining Geth outposts and FOBs. It would not be long before they come across the Collectors.

She and Liara grew closer after the over looming threat of their death faded away and the night of passion they shared before meeting their Saren for the final time could be discussed. The differences in aging was the topic of discussion that was brought up at length. 

Shepard shook her head, “That means, at best, there’s another one hundred and twenty years of your projected thousand year time span.” 

“Yes…” 

Shaking her head, Shepard said, “By the time I am buried and my bones turn to dust, you will not have even hit your midlife crisis. You said it yourself, you’re ‘only one hundred and six.’” 

Liara moved forward to sit on the corner of the bed, better to face and lean forward to touch Shepard in her work chair. “Yes,” she said, “and that will be my burden to bear when it is time. It is not unheard of and I will not be alone in my grief.”

“So, support groups? Human Widows Anonymous?” 

The attempt at humor fell flat but Liara allowed a smirk to slip through, “Something like that. I think the hardest thing for me would be to get over my envy of you. You get to spend your life with me, if you so choose. There’s something so…” she thought for a moment, “...gratifying about that. You know exactly what you’re going to do next. Sleep and wake up next to me, and, maybe someday, little blue children.” 

“Mom would love grandkids,” Shepard allowed, “but that’s something else...what if I want to get pregnant? Your species can copulate with anyone and make more Asari. My body doesn’t work like that. I’d need a male human, or the sperm at least. And that would also mean you’d outlive my, technically our, child. Before our blue ones are out of their,” Shepard made quotations with her fingers, “teen years, our pink ones will already be grandparents and expecting Death’s call.” 

“You’re thinking too far into this,” Liara began. 

“But I have to. If you’re serious about this as I am, this will need to be sorted out.” 

Shepard closed her eyes and looked back to the dance floor. The human/Asari couple were arm-in-arm as they veered around the corner and down the stairs. Shepard picked up her communicator and scrolled down to Liara’s name on her contact list. The last message she received from Liara was dated after the Cerberus attack on the Citadel a few weeks prior.  
Shepard put the communicator away and asked for a refill. She checked the time; there was still sixty hours left in the shore leave. Fifty-nine hours and fifty-nine minutes until she can plot a course for the next mission. Maybe she’ll bump into Kai Leng. 

There was a rush of emotions and her fingers lost their grip of her glass. The rage mingled in with varying levels of hatred and disgust with a stream of shame snaking its way throughout. The clink of the bastard’s sword (It’s 2186, who the fuck uses a sword?) made her hair stand up. He jammed the blade into the smooth floor of the Temple of Athame-like a traitor’s Excalibur-before running, full on sprinting towards her. His blows struck Liara and Shepard was pinned by the Cerberus gunship; a mile behind it the colossal and arachnid shadow of another Reaper floated down, lighting Thessia’s dusk horizon with bright crimson death. 

The Reaper showed no signs of interest as the gunship hoisted the Prothean beacon away from the temple, Kai Leng with it. It was focusing its attention on the other buildings nearby and the Asari fighting back to defend their homes. Shepard’s eyes burned at the memory of hearing the Asari ground troops begging over the radio, for backup, for evac, for anything.  
Another Reaper glided through the clouds, towering over the beautiful buildings that were older than human civilization. Liara had gripped Shepard’s hand when they heard the soldiers’ final moments before the radio link was broken by static. 

That sword’s clink into the temple floor was nowhere near as horrible as the soft, meaty sound it make when it pierced Thane’s stomach weeks prior. 

The bartender offered Shepard a new glass. His voice shook her from her stupor. She looked at him, confused. The new glass glistened; the strobe lights from the dance floor reflecting off of the sweat of the cool drink. 

A small droid beeped and scurried at the foot of Shepard’s stool, sweeping up and collecting the broken glass and what little remained of her drink. She didn’t remember hearing it collide with the floor. 

“Pa-thetic,” a voice shouted. 

Shepard turned to see Jack walking up to take the stool next to her. She apparently didn’t feel the need to dress up. Shepard at least put on a nice dress to come here; Jack was in her usual fatigue slacks and low cut open leather jacket. The thin white strips criss crossing over her hips, up her torso to her collar bone- with its stark contrast to the darkly colored tattoos covering near every inch of the abundance of exposed skin-must have turned many heads on the way here. 

Jack pushed the strands of hair always finding their way on her forehead aside. She pushed them onto the rest of the small amount of hair taking up her scalp only before coming down to a ponytail. She ordered a bottle of whisky and snapped her fingers to banish the glass that came with it. She uncorked it and tapped it against Shepard’s glass.  
“To you, Commander,” she said and took a long swig. 

“To me,” she agreed and drank. She put the glass back on the bar, “How’re the kids?” 

Jack smirked but there was a tint of sadness in her eyes, “All over the place. Last I went over the roster Prangley was leading a squad over on Palavan. Rodriguez messaged me yesterday, said she’s on this Asari ship. I told her not to embarrass me. Blue bitches are born with biotics, my students should know better than to look like idiots in front of them.”  
After another long swig of whisky, Jack continued, “Speaking of blues, how’s your girlfriend holding up?” 

“About as well as you can expect,” Shepard tilted her cup towards Jack’s bottle. The woman nicknamed “the psychotic biotic” obliged and filled the commander’s cup. “She’s not left her room since we landed.” 

“Fuck,” Jack said, “I was hoping to get you both, but if you’re up for pairing up with me by yourself, I’m game.” 

Shepard squinted. Jack had no qualms with discussing her previous sexual exploits but she never expressed taking the commander to bed. Although...Shepard considered, rough would no doubt be her M.O....her biotics against mine? She eyed her glass. She rediscovered the initial buzz and found the sweet spot. 

“There’s that combat simulator up a block from here,” Jack said. “I thought it might help.” 

Shepard blinked, “Oh...oh! yeah, I haven’t been yet.” 

“You down?” 

“Fuck it,” Shepard shrugged.


End file.
